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Monday, November 10, 2014

NOW REGISTERING!
New winter session is January 6th - February 28th. The focus will be technique during these 8 weeks. March 3rd begins the spring session with the last week of March being a spring break for all dancers. The end of the spring session and summer plans will be announced in the near future. See the register tab, schedule tab, and cost tab for more information.

Friday, September 12, 2014

We are so excited to have so many new students with us this season! We have several young ones in which this is their first 'classroom' experience and they are learning much about social skills, classroom expectations and taking turns. We also have several older students that are taking a big step to learning ballet or continuing their ballet education with us! We are a little crowded in the lobby between classes due to the class schedule, so we are changing the shoes area to 'inside' the class. Your daughter will also learn how to 'check' herself in on an attendance sheet as she enters the class. Please be patient with us as we work out some of the quirks and, shall I say, get through some 'growing pains'!?

Meagan, our Front Desk Assistant, not only helps us with tuition payments and dance wear orders, but is also working on fundraising for the studio! We have a growing list of studio needs, such as barres, flooring, supplies and a scholarship fund! The scholarship fund currently has 2 requests for tuition assistance and Meagan sent out an email today regarding a Yankee Candle fundraiser! We are asking all our dancers to participate! :) The catalogs should be available in the next two weeks and more information will be coming! We also have an ongoing fundraiser of tutus for sale!! Please consider purchasing them for Christmas presents? Birthday presents? Or purchase all of them for a ballet-themed birthday party! These funds go directly to pay for a dancer to take classes!

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Today as we were setting up, a little curly-headed, bright-eyed girl walked by our booth with her grandmother, arms full of boxes and items, on their way to set up their booth with eyes all aglow as I was unpacking tutus and setting up dancing girl pictures at our booth! Each time she passed our booth her eyes became more fixed and curious as to what our booth was about! A couple times later, she and her grandmother said--'hi!!' with much curiousity and I look forward to meeting them officially this week! I could see her in our next classes to teach girls from a young age they are royalty to the King of Kings and should 'dance for joy' before Him!!

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors we will be at the Porter County Fair in the vendor booth building all this week! The fair runs from July 16-26th, from noon - 9 or 10pm each day! If you arrive around noon the gate is open with FREE ADMISSION! Those helping me with the booth also get 2 free passes into the fair (the passes have to be given back once in the fair)! We are located right next to the VCA booth as they are family and I work for them as well! I am looking forward to meeting many new people and telling them all about our dance studio!

Offers this week:

ENTER TO WIN: will have an entry to WIN a FREE month of classes for new students! There will also be a 2nd way to win given at the booth. If there are plenty of entries, we may give away SEVERAL months of classes!! So send your friends out to sign up! Share this with ALL YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS, your church friends and any other parents you know or don't know yet out there!!

TUTUS: There are tutus FOR SALE for $10 each of various colors and doll tutus FOR SALE for $5 each. I can't wait to see all the fluffy tutus dancing around the fair and people asking---where did you get that?!! Then all these children running to our booth! :) So we will see. I would just love to see that!

OPEN HOUSE: An announcement about our Open House and Open Classes is offered at the booth this week!! All are welcome to come to our OPEN HOUSE to try classes for FREE!

REGISTER FOR CLASSES: There will be pink folders that contain registration information and new students can register for classes at the fair!

DISCOUNT FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Current students can have a 50% discount on next month's tuition (when paying monthly) if they refer someone and they sign up for at least a month of classes! Current students come out in your tutu and help your mom at the booth this week!

Thursday, May 15, 2014

~Increase technical ability~Evaluations based on national dance standards~Make new friends and have fun!!~Increase the love of dance!!~Wear socks with ballet slippers and leotard instead of tights!! A wrap skirt suggested. See Sam for details. ~Convenient weekly sessions of one class per week

~wholesome, Christ-centered learning

~small class sizes

~affordable

Summer Session Fees:

Mommy and Me! for 2 yrs. and Dance with Me! for children with Autism or Down Syndrome are $40 for 4 weeks or $50 for 8 weeks.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Dance with Me! Its a new class for children under 10 yrs. that have Autism or Down Syndrome. A parent or caregiver is a part of this class and it will be begin on April 5th! Let us know if you would like to join us!

It is Master's Dance Academy's ONE YEAR Birthday Celebration in the month of March!!! We are celebrating YOU as part of our dance academy!! We also praise God for this growth in just one year! See our facebook page for how we have grown!

Join us for our summer classes!! We have just added the Dance with Me! dance class as well, see above! Also we may add some morning Barre Fit classes if there is interest and a Worship Dance class for adults/teens if there is interest! Let us know!!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

I had the privilege of interviewing Sandy Arena from The Life Ballet, NY. I have met her in person once and talked with her several times on the phone. She and I share the same passion of dancing for the Lord, and she and her family have been called to perform a dance nationwide that speaks about choice and healing in the aftermath. This dance is very powerful because it comes from her heart, it is her testimony to how God has healed her. Enjoy getting to know Sandy better and find her online and on facebook! Maybe she and her dancers can come to your area!

What is your background in dance?

I have always loved movement since I was a child. I was never afforded formal gymnastics or dance lessons as a child, so I did what I could to fulfill this craving I had in my body to express myself through movement by dancing or doing walk-overs wherever I could!

In second grade, I founded a cheerleading team with my best friend and in high school I participated in the dance team and it’s kind of embarrassing now to think back because we had no training, but just this pure love of dance. What I lacked in technical training, I made up for in passion, I suppose.

In addition to this festival, I remember going to a jazz class with this same friend at a dance studio in our town. The owner of the studio encouraged us to audition for dance parts in a production. I was very slender, limber and like I said passionate, so I guess she thought we had a chance. That same day, my friend and I stopped at a convenient store on our way home. My father so happened to be there (he was separated from my mother at the time and I rarely saw him and when I did, it usually wasn’t pleasant). He yelled at me in front of the store because I had been wearing tights and a leotard accusing me of basically being a whore. I did not mean to dress inappropriately. My mind didn’t even go there. For me, it was like a basketball player driving home in his uniform. It just didn’t occur to me. It was if the devil was trying to squash something in my soul from the beginning.

When I gave birth to my oldest daughter Alexis, I was determined to provide her with formal dance instruction and enrolled her in her in a preschool ballet class when she was just 2 years old at a place I had been teaching fitness. Alexis was shy her first year of classes and her teacher Miss Linda allowed me to attend the classes with her! I learned all the basics of ballet alongside my three-year-old daughter! Alexis continued dancing at this recital school studying ballet, tap and jazz through age 10. I was then a “dance mom” enjoying every opportunity and performance my daughter was in.

When Alexis was in fifth grade, we enrolled her in a professional ballet training center. A few years thereafter when she was 13 years old, she asked us to open a Christian ballet studio for her! Life in the training center for her had been grueling and unkind in many ways, emotionally and socially. So we said “yes” to her request and opened a ballet school for her called the Amanda Rose Belmont Dance for Joy Studio. Our ballet company was named Yahweh Ballet. We started in the basement of a Christian school in our area and within one year had approximately 100 students enrolled. Our other two children Annaliese and Caleb were ages two and four when we opened the school, and I was definitely in over my head. We had no idea it would take off like it did. It was a journey of faith and the Lord completely equipped our family for this assignment for each victory and each challenge, bringing us closer to Him every moment. It wasn’t so much about the dance school, but about learning more about the character and heart of our Lord as we heeded to what seemed impossible at the time. With God by my side, I learned how to HIRE dance teachers, how to manage many people and how to make a business work the HARD way, through hands-on experience.

I ran the school until 2011 at which time our Alexis chose to make the school her own and her career, with me staying involved with a few key projects that are very close to my heart including my traveling show The Life Ballet. We closed Dance for Joy and Alexis re-opened as a private business called Mossa School of Dance (www.mossadance.com) and I then became the wind beneath her wings. It was then that I started taking ballet and conditioning classes at Mossa when I have time!

Who says you can’t learn ballet at age 47 and in the company of my youngest daughter Annaliese, who was 8 years old at the time and with my oldest daughter Alexis as my teacher. I had a secret competition going with my younger daughter as we worked on our splits and plies together! Funny story was when my daughter Alexis scolded me in class for chewing gum and stopped the entire class to wait for me to throw my gum out.

The whole story of Yahweh Ballet and this assignment from God can be read in my book Yahweh Ballet: Learning to Dance by Faith. I wrote this book as a way to inspire and encourage others to heed to the call of God no matter how seemingly impossible using our own journey with the dance school as example. The book is an easy read, and includes many beautiful dance photos from our shows and scriptures sharing lessons and principals of faith we learned along the way. The book can be purchased via my website at: http://www.sandyarena.com/Buy.html

What are you most passionate about?I am most passionate about serving the Lord and my family and about honoring the role of motherhood in all that I do! I am very certain of my purpose as a servant of God and a helper to my husband and our family. This has to be the most satisfying and grounding feeling in the world, and one I would say took years to discover. When I finally heard the truth of this call for a woman’s life as it is laid out in the word of God, everything in my heart and life came together and clicked. I try to funnel all of my interests and ministry callings through this vein whether it is homeschooling my children which I absolutely love to do or whether it is traveling with our show The Life Ballet which my whole family participates in! Motherhood and family is the greatest calling on a woman’s life and I truly try to highlight this through all of my work endeavors whether it is by way of cheerfully folding a load of laundry for the 5th time in a day or whether it is sharing a blog post about the joys of being a wife and a mom! I wouldn’t dance, or teach or perform unless I was doing it alongside and for my family. I wouldn’t do it, if it drew me away from them. I do it because it has become part of our lives and an effort that has drawn us closer together. Below is a picture of Sandy with her family and friends on a recent trip with The Life Ballet.

What Kind of Studio/Ministry Do You Have Now?

I am involved as a “visionary” kind of person in a lot of areas! I can best answer this question with the vision statement on my website Arts Illuminate. I chose this name as an umbrella name to the many things God has me involved in above and beyond dance including writing, dancing, teaching worship to children, photography, writing music, or performing with our traveling shows. Check it out if you get a chance at www.sandyarena.com or www.artsilluminate.com (they both go to the same place).Here is the statement: Arts Illuminate was founded by Sandy Arena in 2013 as an umbrella organization to her family's work for the Kingdom including God's Girl Princess and Yahweh Ballet Worship Dance Classes, The Life Ballet Traveling Dance Production and Silent Dancers for Life. Arts Illuminate shares the healing light of Jesus Christ through photography and prophetic music by Sandy Arena, and visual, worship and performance arts focusing on the grace, love and mercy of Jesus Christ. "You will be a light to guide the nations. You will open the eyes of the blind. You will free the captives from prison, releasing those who sit in dark dungeons." Isaiah 42:7.

Tell us more about the Dance for Life/Silent Dancers Ministry.

I am very passionate about social justice issues and speaking out against abortion, as well as ministering healing through the arts to people suffering in the aftermath of abortion. Abortion is the greatest tragedy in our modern history this country has faced with 56 million lives lost since abortion was legalized in the United States in 1973. One in three women by age 45 has had an abortion. There are many hurting people after this choice, and I was one of them for many years suffering in the silence of shame. There are so many ways this issue needs to be battled, but one of the ways God has given to me is to share my own personal abortion testimony through our show The Life Ballet with the purpose of telling others this is not the choice to make in the midst of unplanned pregnancy, and also that there is healing and forgiveness after abortion for the millions who have made this choice. We travel with this production around the country and even performed it once in Canada. There is great power in the arts to minister truth and healing. We dedicate our show to all the children who never had the chance to dance. More information about The Life Ballet show can be found at www.thelifeballet.org.

We began dancing in front of abortion clinics in the summer of 2013 after an online friend sent me a simple message one day that said “Bless you as you dance to end abortion.” She is very involved in the prayer movement at abortion clinics. She was alluding to The Life Ballet in her message, but in some way the words jumped off the page to me in vision, and I saw us dancing in silence and intercession in front of clinics. I saw this as a growing movement that would involve people who love movement all over the country. When we move, we are worshipping and praying and interceding. It was very scary at first to do this. I had no idea what to expect. But like everything else, the Lord has been with us all the way. Now it is one of our favorite things to do and it is so powerful. We dance for an hour and wear t-shirts to unify our efforts. People stop and notice when they see dancers. Our efforts gain attention from passerbys, but more importantly God responds to our movement prayers. More information can be found at: Click Here.

Is this something we could do in our area?

Yes please! It is our hope and desire that others would join us in this effort. Our vision is to set up teams with a unifying vision! There is power in movement and in unity! We have Silent Dancers t-shirts and products available on our merchandise store -http://teamstore.gtmsportswear.com/thelifeballet. Unifying through clothing grabs visual attention and is teambuilding.

In raising our children to honor God as dancers, what are some important things we need to teach them as parents and dance teachers?

Know that what God has put in you to express yourself is powerful. Dance is a gift. Movement is a gift. It tells a story. It ministers healing. It turns our mourning into dancing (Psalm 30). It brings forth prayer, worship and praise (Psalm 149). It celebrates. It is cleansing to the body and freeing to the spirit. It touches those who watch it deeply. It touches those who are engaged in it deeply, as well. Be thankful to the Lord for this gift and know as you dance for Him that you are pioneering a method of communication that has been lost in the church. It is time that it is returned to the church as the powerful form of expression, prayer and praise that God created it to be.

Be kind to the dancer. The body is the “paint” or the “canvas”. It is the “instrument”. It is the song. To dance in front of others can be a vulnerable activity. Strive for excellence, but know perfection is impossible and kills the soul. A less than perfect move with expression can be more powerful than the most perfectly executed dance move done with a flat face. Dance for an audience of One (our Lord), no matter what kind of dance God has called you to do whether you are a prima ballerina on the grandest stages in the world, or whether you are dancing in front of an abortion clinic to raise awareness of the injustice of abortion.

Be kind to each other when dancing together. Respect your teachers. Respect the Lord. Respect your body in what you wear and in what you eat. It is a physical pursuit and is challenging. Take care of your instrument – the body God gave you! If you are attacked or criticized for modesty issues or movement issues, examine your heart – like the situation that happened with my father! That hurt my feelings so deeply and made me never want to dance again. It filled me with shame, not conviction. The thought that what I was wearing was not appropriate had not crossed my mind, because like Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall of sin, I didn’t even notice what I was wearing. Had my father suggested to me in a different, LOVING tone, I would have responded. Remember this if you feel it is your place to correct. Most likely, it’s not your place.

Remember, above all else, to put on LOVE when representing Jesus and HE will show you the way!

Monday, January 27, 2014

2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2a

The world has a very different view of dance than God intended. These verses talk about not conforming to the pattern of this world. What is the pattern of this world? Well, before we look at this question, let’s discuss why this topic is even relevant. For many, there hasn’t been a difference between their faith life, so to speak, and the world’s influence.

As men and women, we go about our lives looking for something. As children we want to please our parents, whether we know it or not, we are looking for approval. Its as if the we didn’t swing on the swing and jump so far off it if the parents have not seen it yet. It is as if we don’t have any worth at all if we don’t have our parents approval. Then as we grow up we are looking for our worth from our peers and those around us. What does the world say we need to do to have worth? Well, there are all sorts of statements we see or hear each day. From the clothes or phones peers rave about at school or the best dress for prom, others can get discouraged feeling less ‘approved’ if they didn’t get certain compliments, etc. We hear them through commercials and through friends that discuss what’s important to them, for example, that great backyard or big house from the Menard’s or Lowe’s commercials and HGTV network, even what cars we drive, etc. So our worth can very easily be influenced by those around us or the ‘world’.

Well God teaches something radically different. What is the viewpoint of those examples I gave above? Self centered. One of the first things I teach my worship dancers, is to think of others and not to think of yourself. When a dancer is nervous about being in front of others for a recital/service, etc. I state, ‘you are thinking of yourself’, think on God and who He is and your nervousness will fade. We as humans can be very self centered looking for approval and worth from those around us. Instead, God teaches us to think of others above yourselves. He says in 1st Timothy 6:6, ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’. Platt says in his book Radical, “In the context of this passage, contentment is described as having food and clothing, having the necessities of life provided for....and those who desire to be rich and acquire more than the necessities of life are in danger of being plunged into ruin and destruction.” Can we be content with what we have and not desire more? Can we think of others and what God would want from us instead of what we want?

Approval and worth in some instances in the Bible/Biblehub.com means:hence to please, winning someone's favor (affection, approval). So we are literally trying to win someone’s favor when we are looking for approval. The Scripture also teaches to -be not conformed ... - The word rendered "conformed" properly means to put on the form, fashion, or appearance of another. It may refer to anything pertaining to the habit, manner, dress, style of living, etc., of others, from Barnes Notes on the Bible/Biblehub.com. So whose approval are we looking for in all our decisions each day? How many times a day is the hope of someone’s approval the driving force for our words and actions?

God says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word transformed is derived from the Greek form metamorphóō, which is the root of the English terms "metamorphosis" and "metamorphize. It literally means to transfigure or transform. Now we must note that the scripture says we are to ‘be transformed’. So we cannot do this ourselves, but it is something done TO us, and how is this done to us? It is done by the renewing of our minds. Renewing means to make new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’ This is done by our minds, which in this case means our intellect, will and emotions. So we are to be changing our minds and how is this done? By learning what brings God’s approval. Looking at His word and getting to know what He desires for us.

He says His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). As Pastor Matthew said this Sunday at church, we must be connected to the vine. The true vine, Jesus and know what He knows. We must search the Scripture and pray in order to love others the way He does, in order to be humble like Him and think of others just like He does. We must be connected to Him. I pray the Lord will give us a desire to know Him more by reading His word and through prayer. This will take time and we must be radical in our time management so we can get to know Him better. Our time is truly His time anyways, take His time to get to know Him, the author of time and literally of yourself.

So what does this have to do with dance? We must as dancers get to know Him if we are to dance to honor Him. Most dance schools have an underlying message saying, ‘in order to be a great dancer you must think of yourself as being great and its all about you, its how you dance, how you look, how skinny you are, etc.’. Plus the performances can be very self consuming. They are also teaching children how to ‘dress to impress’ and most of the outfits to dance in are very skimpy for practice and recitals. One school nearby has even little girls as young as 5 yrs. old wear bootie shorts and a sports bra for practice. This is actually exploiting our girls at a young age by causing them to think its appropriate to wear these types of clothing that call attention to their bodies and give them ‘worth‘ through their bodies. Our girls are to be cherished and told from a young age to honor God with their bodies and lives, by dressing modestly, and valuing healthy lives, not the skinny type., by being kind and thinking of others, as well as, staying humble by not thinking of themselves as the best. There are many more ways to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds in our lives and in dance. If you have comments and ideas, please add them here! Thanks!

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Join us for a new Mommy and Me Dance Class!! Starting Saturday, Feb. 1st from 9:15-9:45am! Contact Master's Dance Academy through mastersdanceacademy@gmail.com if you are interested! See the Schedule & Costs page for more details!